


She Who Weeps

by Dwimordene



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: General, Multi-Age, Writing - Every word counts, Writing - Mythic/Poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2009-01-23
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4215152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dwimordene/pseuds/Dwimordene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Not all tears are evil"</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>- Gandalf, <i>Return of the King</i>, "The Grey Havens."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Weeper

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

In after years, the Children will say that she entered the world late – unhappy need of Arda Marred.   
  
So they will say, and she'll lament the fading of their wisdom, as she does all worthy things.   
  
For she was ere the Beginning, will be beyond the End. When Eru dwelt alone, she was with him – no child of His thought, but the pity of His heart for the Void.   
  
Before the Light, she was and wept, and when He spoke, He called her by name. He sent her forth into _Eä_ , His gift, His strength, His emissary: Sweet Sister Sorrowing.  
  
  
 _What Is_ , is good; what _is_ , is good. Eru willed them: brave beings that unfold to chance becoming. Yet not all that's good can be gathered. To each its time and turn, yet to be is untimely, risky, wounding.   
  
Nienna sees the souls of things, consoles their boisterous bruising, mourns their passing in innocent, self-giving strife – wrests place and meaning for them. Her memory is boundless.  
  
In the wilderness she goes weeping, watering all the world – gifts of love in salt and soothing. The elemental spirits find harmony like gravity; the joyous plants, toadstools to trees, grow love, breathe _Amen_.   
  
  
Yet speakers need another way – the chance of grief and pardon that she is. The darkness of a ruined tree is yet innocent decay. But of speakers, there are Wise and Wicked, that in every soul unite in one will – are chanced in every instant.  
  
For every instant's destined for _History_ that's neither good nor bad, but ever without innocence. _Fate_ , the fatality in every fatalism, lurks within its depths, suffocating stitch of time.     
  
 _Breath_ comes in the hitch – teary breaching towards renewal and redemption.   
  
'Tis war. Thus Nienna arms herself in suffering with just eyes, goes forth to struggle...  
  
  
Might, Lamps, Trees, Night – _Ashes, ashes, they all fall down._  
  
Life, Kin, Love, Light – _All lie bleeding by the waves._

Shades rise up and hopes fall down, on eyeless Fate all run aground – for history's all an open grave, that counts no cry and heeds no rave.   
  
But to each Nienna bends her ear, and with them to the slaughter goes – she knows the number of their tears, the face of every one laid low.   
  
Heart to heart, move hand to hand in open, selfless outreach – so she pleads and teaches, and batters the heart's shutters. For _that_ is hope that breaks with fate – child of grief and pity. Her labor goes from mourn to morn, and thence to joy in the unclenched fist.   
  
Nay, not all tears are evil: for as Eru loves and overflows, mourning becomes Nienna.  
  
  
  
  



	2. The Mourner's Hymn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Not all tears are evil"

There's a king upon the mountains  
and a queen who lights the sky  
there's a master of those waters  
that bring the good news by  
  
Brother Must-Be sits upon his throne  
Gathers all the passers, stripped of all their bones  
Brother Must-Be sits upon his throne  
Lord of Knots he binds us, makes our deeding done  
  
They say she sits in Mandos,  
Lady Wailer of long sighs  
They say she sits in Mandos  
Resignatorix Wise  
  
But she's in the waters,  
and out upon the air  
Her sigh blows through the forest eaves  
She carries every care  
  
She walks amid the buzzing flies  
That torment dying streets:  
Lady Patience in her pity –  
Swift to groan and weep  
  
Mem'ry unassailable  
She knows the high and low  
There's none to whom she's stranger  
She's the world in her soul  
  
She's grief and joy and rage and tears  
And madness is her gift –  
Self-forgetting suffering  
That innocence uplifts  
  
The enemy of weavers,  
She sings a sweet discord  
Tattered Lady Raveler  
Who breaks Time with a Word  
  
And Brother Must-Be sits upon his throne  
Gath'ring all the passers, stripped of all their bones  
Yes, Brother Must-Be sits upon his throne  
Lord of Knots he binds us, makes our deeding done  
  
But O! she'll be the otherwise,  
Poor Bloody-fingered Queen,  
And wear the weft of Fate loose,  
Our Sister Sorrowing.


End file.
